Generally, a control unit for a refrigerator comprises an input unit for receiving a variety of operation signals for operations of the refrigerator, a display unit for externally displaying a variety of information on the operations of the refrigerator, and a controller for controlling the input unit and the display unit. FIGS. 20 and 21 are front views schematically showing conventional control unites for refrigerators.
As shown in FIG. 20, a display unit 10 displays a variety of information on operations of a refrigerator, such as set temperatures of a freezing chamber and a refrigerating chamber, and a service mode of a dispenser. An input unit 20 is provided with a plurality of buttons for receiving operation signals for changing the set temperatures of the freezing chamber and the refrigerating chamber or a set value of the service mode of the dispenser.
In addition, as shown in FIG. 21, a display unit 30 displays a variety of menus for operations of a refrigerator. The menus include upper menus 31 and lower menus 33 subordinated thereto. An input unit 40 is provided with a plurality of buttons for receiving operation signals for selecting any one of the upper menus 31 and the lower menus 33 or changing the set value of any selected one of the upper menus 31 and the lower menus 33.
However, the conventional control unites for refrigerators have the following problems.
As described above, the display unit 10 simply displays information on the operations of a refrigerator or menus related to the operations of the refrigerator. Accordingly, there are disadvantages in that menus of a variety of functions according to user's requests cannot be displayed and the menus cannot be displayed in different manners.
Furthermore, each button provided on the input unit 20 or 40 is configured to receive only one operation signal, e.g., one of the buttons is configured to receive only an operation signal for selecting any one of the menus, whereas another button is configured to receive only an operation signal for increasing (or decreasing) the set value of the menu. Accordingly, as many buttons as the numbers of menus and manipulations of the menus should be provided in the input unit 20 or 40, and thus, the input unit 20 or 40 becomes complicated.
In addition, the display unit 30 simultaneously displays the upper menus 31 and the lower menus 33 subordinated thereto. Accordingly, since menus are complicatedly displayed on the display unit 30, a user suffers from inconvenience in using the menus since the upper menus 31 and the lower menus 33 displayed on the display unit 30 cannot be easily identified.